Privacy Policy

The short version

• Your photographs never leave your device. Text recognition runs entirely on your device — in your browser on the web, and on your phone in the iPhone and Android apps. We never receive, store or see the pictures you read.
• You can use the app without an account. Signed out, we hold nothing that identifies you.
• No advertising, no third-party tracking. There are no analytics cookies and no advertising identifiers.
• We do not sell or share your personal information for anyone else’s purposes.

What we collect, and why

If you never sign in

Nothing identifying. Your saved words, settings and downloaded audio are stored on your own device — by your browser, or by the app on your phone — and are not transmitted to us. Clearing your browser data or deleting the app erases them, and we cannot recover them.

When you look up a meaning

English meanings come from our server, so the words you tap or read are sent to it to be looked up. They are not stored, and are not connected to you or your account.

When you turn on Translate

Translation is off until you turn it on. When it is on, the text of what you are reading — the characters, never the photograph — is sent through our server to OpenAI, which translates it and returns the English. We do not store it or connect it to you. OpenAI does not use it to train its models, and may keep it for up to 30 days to detect abuse before deleting it. Your device keeps the translations it has received, so a passage read before still has its English offline.

When you write your name in Cantonese

The name you type is sent through our server to OpenAI, which suggests the characters, and both the name and the answer are checked by OpenAI’s moderation service. We do not store your name; recent answers are held briefly in memory so the same name is not asked for twice. A card you make from it is made on your device.

When you share a link

A share link publishes the lines you chose at that address for 90 days. They are checked by OpenAI’s moderation service first, kept out of search engines, and deleted when the link expires. We keep a one-way code made from your connection’s address alongside, to limit how many links one connection makes — not the address itself. Share images are made on your device and never sent to us.

When you report a wrong reading

If you tap “Wrong reading?” and send, we receive the word, the reading shown, the line it was in, and any correction or note you add. It is not connected to your account.

If you create an account

• Your email address, so we can sign you in with a link and reach you about a purchase. If you sign in with Apple or Google we receive the email address and name they release to us (Apple lets you hide both), and nothing else.
• Your saved words — the word, its reading, the meaning shown, the sentence you found it in, and its review schedule — so they survive a cleared browser and reach your other devices.
• Your entitlement: whether you have bought the camera, and when.
• If you sign in with Apple on an iPhone, a token from Apple that is kept only so we can tell Apple to revoke your sign-in when you delete your account.

If you buy the camera

On the web, payment is processed by Stripe. Your card details go directly to Stripe and never pass through our servers — we receive a customer reference and confirmation that payment succeeded.

In the iPhone and Android apps, payment is made through the App Store or Google Play, under your Apple or Google account; we never see your payment details. RevenueCat, the service we use to confirm store purchases, receives a record of the purchase and an identifier for you — your account’s identifier if you are signed in, or a random one if you are not — so the unlock can be confirmed and restored.

Stripe, Apple, Google and RevenueCat each handle that information under their own privacy policies.

If you play a ranked run

Your score and the inputs of that run are sent so the result can be verified, with a name if you give one — the phone apps send none, and show you as Anonymous. Names are shown publicly. They are filtered for obvious abuse, and anyone can report one from the board: a reported name is replaced with “Anonymous” at once, and the report is kept so we can see patterns of abuse. Scores are not connected to your account.

Text recognition in the phone apps

The iPhone and Android apps read text with Google’s ML Kit, which runs on your phone. ML Kit may send Google anonymous diagnostics about its own performance and usage; it never sends your pictures or the text read from them.

What we never collect

Photographs, or camera access beyond the moment you choose a picture. Contacts, location, advertising identifiers, or your browsing anywhere else. We do not build a profile of you.

Where it is held

Account data is held by Supabase; payment records by Stripe, and for app purchases by Apple or Google and RevenueCat. Text you choose to translate is processed by OpenAI. Each may store and process data outside Australia, including in the United States and the European Union. By using an account or making a purchase you consent to that transfer. Each is bound by its own contractual and legal obligations to protect it.

How long we keep it

Account data for as long as your account exists. Delete your account and we erase your saved words and profile within 30 days — except purchase records, which we keep for seven years because Australian tax law requires it. How to delete it is on its own page.

Your rights

You may ask for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Without asking us, Settings lets you erase your words, on the device and in your account, and delete your account; on the web it also exports your words at any time. For anything else, email privacy@snap2story.com and we will respond within 30 days.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

Children

Canto Reader is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information. The app works with no account at all, which is the form we would suggest for a child.

Storage on your device

On the web we use your browser’s local storage to remember your settings, your words and which audio you have downloaded, and a service worker so the app works offline. The phone apps keep the same things in their own storage on your phone. None of it is a tracking cookie or identifier, none of it is readable by anyone else, and it stays on your device until you clear it or delete the app.

Contact

Snap2Story Pty Ltd (ABN 26 696 266 654)
Level 1, 457–459 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia
privacy@snap2story.com